


With No Language But a Cry

by starfleetdicks



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Tattoos, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-04
Updated: 2014-09-04
Packaged: 2018-02-16 02:48:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2253096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starfleetdicks/pseuds/starfleetdicks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the destruction of Vulcan and the loss of his mother, Spock struggles to cope. </p><p>Once, pre-reform Vulcans observed the rituals of tattoos, carving stories and names and worlds into their body. It ranged from their own names, to the names of the peoples and worlds they had conquered, and even the names of those they have lost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	With No Language But a Cry

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [spicyshimmy](http://archiveofourown.org/users/spicyshimmy/pseuds/spicyshimmy)'s amazing [pre-reform Vulcan](http://spicyshimmy.tumblr.com/post/75739599158) headcanon post on Tumblr. 
> 
> Title from "In Memoriam A.H.H." by Tennyson. Walt Whitman lines from part 52 (LII) of "Song of Myself."

There are no tombs.

No sacred burial ground, commemorated chasm, grave, or headstone. There is no place to visit her or any of them. Far too many names to commit to a single space, there is no world that could hold the stories of the lost. 

“Along the length of your spine, you say?”

There are no familiar stretches of deserts and mountains. 

“Affirmative.”

There is a slight pause, the unsure squeak of dry gloves against sanitized equipment. “It’s going to be painful, you know?” 

In the next room, a woman cries out. 

Spock examines the four walls, the mirror, and the exit. He wonders at that the statistics of this venture, how often a Vulcan has committed this act imbued by death. Most likely it is uncommon if not completely unheard of. For Romulans, for their sister race, it might be perhaps more common. Spock feels cold rage surge and whisper away, a wave. 

“I am aware.”

It begins a slow burn, like the first flush of a Vulcan summer, unmatched by any desert Spock has found. 

There are no trees, no roots drinking deep of hidden water. No weeping willows to bow their long branches over white marble. His father would have chosen Elm. Spock might have argued for Yew, ancient traditionalism to appease Vulcans and a poet’s symbolism for Terrans. 

“Is this Vulcan calligraphy?” 

As a child, he spent long nights practicing the formation of a thousand curves and loops along the premade vertical writing line. It took a few short months before he was steady handed in his execution and he could organize the calligraphy without the line to guide him. His mother praised him, compared their handwriting. Vaguely, he can recall the slightly tilted axis of her work and the careful way she corrected herself when she accidentally wrote horizontally. 

“Yes,” Spock answers softly. “You are familiar with it?”

He remembers the way his father placed his hand over her’s, painting poems together. It is a memory he has forgotten ever existed until this moment. The knowledge is soothing and aches all at once, a curious dichotomy. 

“In passing. And you want it along your spine which is funny cause you know, it’s all written along a central line.”

“Yes, I suppose it is humorous. Vulcans refer to the central line colloquially as a spine.”

The light chuckle of the man behind him reminds him of Sybok, quiet nights on Vulcan, and the life before exile. They said goodbye at midday, ta’als pressed together, and quiet words exchanged that meant a thousand things unsaid. His mother had been absent and Sarek did not condone their farewell. Spock had been only a child and there had been countless meanings in Sybok’s smiles, much like Amanda’s. Even now Spock could not tell what those smiles had consisted of but he knew that he missed them. 

“I’ve never had a Vulcan come in, honestly. First time I’ve been asked to do this. What is it?”

There is a heavy silence that shows the man regrets his question. Spock does not mean to let it linger but the truth is thick and uncomfortable in his throat. His father prompted him to speak his mind once after he had hurt his fellow crew member in anger. To speak about emotions, to admit that he could not always control them, Spock had considered it unwise. Sarek, as if extending an olive branch, had merely said that what is necessary is never unwise. 

“It is the name of my mother. In the time before reformation, Vulcans would carve or tattoo the names of many beings on their bodies. Once, it was enemies. Slowly it evolved into the names of those we had lost. It is an ancient practice, all but forgotten.”

The artist’s hands do not cease their work nor the careful swipes of cloth over his back to clean it. It is fitting that Spock bleeds for this. Like tears, the blood christens this dedication. 

“Even on Terra, we know about _Va’Pak_.” 

The man pronounces it slowly and the words are sluggish and soft on his tongue. It does not matter. Spock recognizes it. In Standard, Vulcans call it The Immeasurable Loss. Illogical. There are numbers to quantify it. Names to put to those numbers. Families to find that grieve. Spock could measure it in the sadness of his father’s face. A face that Spock has never seen as anything other than stoic. It is quantifiable in the silence of the _Enterprise_ crew as the anniversary draws near. Spock knows its gravity in the center of his soul where both the planet and his mother have been ripped away. 

Spock could enumerate to anyone who asked the distance down to the millimeter that had separated him from his mother. The loss could be calculated thusly and a thousand more ways. 

“You know, my own mom was a good lady. She liked poetry, loved this one Terran poet, Whitman or something. She always quoted two lines: _Missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you._ Anyway, I lost her a handful of years ago. It was old age but still, hard on a person. ”

Once, when Sarek had taken a long leave to Terra, Amanda had gathered Spock into her arms on the balcony of their home. She had promised that she had given birth there in plain view of the mountains of Shi’Kar. On that balcony, they crafted poems together in Golic Vulcan. Poems to be shared, poems to those loved, and poems she had heard on Terra. 

“I am only half Vulcan,” Spock confides in this Terran. It is sudden, the need for the words. There had once been pain in that admission. The consequences of such a truth at the hand of tormentors when he was young or fellow crewmen as he aged. That pain could no longer touch him now in the face of this. He had never been ashamed of his mother, the light of her emotions, the careless way she would project feeling into every touch. 

His father had never commented on it. Spock had not either. It had been a singularly unique experience, a gift. 

Where the artist touches him, his hands feel steady as they spiral and loop. His gloves are thick but Spock is sure he feels the whisper of a human trying to comfort. “Well,” the Terran answers finally as he cleans the last of the green blood away and sits back. Spock looks at him in the mirror, the first time since they began this process. “No one’s perfect.”

“No,” Spock agrees, some amusement blossoming in his heart. Terrans never cease to amaze him. He has been incredibly lucky in his travels. Throughout tragedy, this species has proved unflinching and resilient. They do not dwell on the past and on sorrow. 

Not perfect, he decides, and remembers the freckles that graced the bridge of his mother’s nose. But close. 

There will be no tomb for Amanda Grayson, wife of Ambassador Sarek, beloved mother. Spock has no place to visit or to lay desert stars. It would have been illogical to commit an empty space to the story of her existence. As per the ancient practice, Spock will instead carry her memory on his skin and in his heart. 

_As always, you shall have a proud son._


End file.
